Posts Tagged ‘spectator sports’
Stage One
It’s baaaaack! The Le Tour de France bicycle race is grabbing my attention for another year. Too bad broadcast marketing geniuses have their coverage primarily hidden behind a pay-to-view provider to which I am not subscribed. At least the opening stage was teased out for free this morning on NBC.
Yesterday, I gave Asher an extended car ride for his first trip up to the lake. Cyndie came up a couple of hours later with her mom. We face the challenge of introducing Asher to the many other dogs that run loose around the six-family compound.
Fingers crossed that we achieve a comfortable normalcy without incident. I walked Asher down to the lake where he demonstrated a profound disinterest in getting wet. It will be interesting to see how long he maintains that behavior.
I’d say we are at stage one of familiarizing the pup with our lake life. It would be nice if we had a team of 8 to help guide us like the cyclists racing in the Tour de France. In those terms, I suppose Asher would be the leader and we are his domestiques.
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Successful Foal
We learned yesterday that three of Mia’s nine foals are still racing and the last-born filly just won a race at Churchill Downs on Friday.
“Shes a Secret” is a three-year-old who ran to victory, making us all proud for Mia and her last baby. Mia’s former owners stopped by to see her and express their appreciation for This Old Horse taking care of their retired broodmare. They told us that Mia was a very good mamma.
It was hot and muggy with miserable air quality due to smoke from Canadian wildfires and the horses were standing by our fans, stomping their legs to knock off biting flies. Not ideal conditions for hanging with the horses under the overhang. Cyndie noticed that Mia was really sweaty and wanted her to be looking her best when company arrived so she choreographed an opportunity for Mia to have better access to one of the fans.
Worked like a charm.
Mia posed for a few pictures and the visitors served up cool baby carrots for all the horses to celebrate the occasion.
I ducked out to check on Asher up at the house where Cyndie had left him with a bone to occupy him. He was doing fine but wouldn’t let that bone out of his mouth for nothin’. I put his vest on over the bone and we went out for a little walk. When he found a spot he liked, he dug a hole and dropped the bone in it. Then came the classic exercise of nosing dirt and leaves over the precious snack to save it for who knows when in the future.
He appears to have that natural instinct down perfectly well.
I am impressed with his ability to cope with the heat outside lately. He is such a hot bod and his dark color must really grab those sun rays fast, yet he soldiers on without complaint. Asher is quick to drink from our landscape pond, passing up perfectly good bowls of water to get there. He shows no hesitation about going back into the house where the floors are cool to lie on for naps.
There was no napping for me yesterday afternoon. I mowed grass around the barn to spruce up the place before our visitors arrived and failed miserably at avoiding the heat and bad air. I cooled off later by watching Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals on television.
With no prior favorite between the two non-hockey geographic location teams, I find myself leaning toward Vegas over Florida.
I won’t be placing any bets on it, though.
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No Accumulation
The following are random snippets of no particular relation beyond being composed in the last hour…
When it snows in April, two of the best words to hear are “No accumulation.” Thank goodness we are not being subjected to a return of the white blanket covering everything outside today. In fact, the precipitation of the last two days has turned our fields much more decidedly green. After so many days in a row last week where it was downright HOT outside, switching back to snow would be a tough pill to swallow. It’s hard not to feel like I’m just getting too old for this.
The horses didn’t seem very happy with the weather this morning, pacing back and forth around the overhang grumpily while I tried to take care of the housekeeping before setting out feed pans.
My spring primping of our landscape is happening in fits and starts. The last trimming I did of bushes and trees is all laying on the ground pretty much where it fell Friday, waiting to be hauled off to some bush pile out of sight. I guess, the truth is there is a significant accumulation of trimmed branches piling up outside.
we are not allowed
to know exactly why
the simple wink of an eye
from someone who is incredibly shy
fails to overtly imply
the end of a sentence
that never got properly finished
In the last few days, there has been news of swift justice demonstrated for a person who leaked top secret documents. Arrest him! Lock him up! Press charges! Why does it take so much longer for some crimes than others?
As much as I enjoy local spectator sports, I have had a difficult time catching our MLS team, the MNUFC Loons, in one of their glory moments. I saw last night’s broadcast of their home game against Orlando City where the Loons scored the first goal. YAY!! Then they allow a tying goal and in the last few minutes of game time, a go-ahead goal to lose. That’s not a spectacle I enjoy so much.
It feels a bit like a cold and drizzly Sunday after a warm and sunny week. However, on the bright side, NO ACCUMULATION of snow!
Thus far.
Afternoon Update:
The snow has gained enough momentum it has turned the surface of our deck furniture white but we are fighting snow with fire to cope.
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Delivery Achieved
I got a phone call from the store in Prescott a few days after I learned the next available date (April 16) the delivery company would be able to pick up my new electric zero-turn lawn mower from Tractor Supply and drive it to my home. It was one of the managers. She expressed sympathy for my long wait and wanted to know if I would be around later in the day because a member of her staff had a truck and the store got a new trailer…
Even though the mix-up on the first planned day of delivery wasn’t the fault of the Tractor Supply staff, they wanted to take care of me now that they had the means to do it.
Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about!
Mark this down as another victory in the realm of Customer Service. I asked whether the store would get credited the fee I had paid to their third-party contractor and the manager said they would. At this point, I chose not to haggle over the cost. In fact, I spent a little more cash on the deal because I couldn’t resist tipping the guy who drove his personal truck to pull their trailer.
That’s all behind me now. My pride led me to wait until the driver left before climbing aboard for the first time. My initial attempts to drive in a straight line were embarrassing and I quickly learned where the button was to select the slower speed setting. I accomplished a fair amount of squealing tires on the pavement as I experimented in my first-ever attempt at operating a lever-controlled steering system.
One of the big attractions to having the agility this mower offers is the number of obstacles there are around here. That also means I don’t have a hazard-free location where I can practice developing my control. I anticipate operating it on the slow speed setting for a while once the mowing days arrive.
In the meantime, I need to pick a location and configure a setup for the three dual-battery chargers.
Our fleet of 60-Volt Greenworks Tools devices now includes a 20″ push mower, a blower, and a 26″ hedge trimmer in addition to the new tractor. I think it would be fair to call me a fan.
Speaking of being a fan, this morning I am ready to tear up my membership in fandom for Minnesota sports after the epic failure of the UofM Gopher hockey team to match the attacks by the Quinnipiac University Bobcats in the championship game of the Frozen Four tournament last night.
I don’t understand why the Gophers tried to defend a one-goal lead for the entire third period by going into a defensive shell when their strength is as an offensive goal-scoring machine. Hats off to Quinnipiac for being such strong competition that they knocked Minnesota off their game.
The end of that game was embarrassing.
As many others have already commented online, that was such a Minnesota way to lose in team sports [MN Lynx excluded]. A quick internet search revealed the common phrase is, “Minnesota Sports Curse.” It’s a thing.
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Getting Bugged
March weekends are spectator sport-acular and the past two days didn’t disappoint. It’s primarily college hockey and basketball competing for my attention as both sports are heading into their final four tournament games next weekend. Between the many men’s and women’s games, I snuck in portions of a Minnesota Wild NHL victory, MSL Loons match, and even a half-inning of MLB Twins grapefruit league game.
I LOVE seeing athletic endeavors. My basketball skills were learned in grade school and I played in the neighborhood, on intramural teams in high school, and in pickup games after hours with co-workers. I was a terrible shooter and generally too short to be effective but I knew how to dribble back in the days when officials would call palming violations.
It bugs me to watch poor dribbling discipline allowed to happen unchecked. Carrying the ball, letting it bounce over shoulder height, turning the hand over like it doesn’t matter. It matters to me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter to referees anymore.
I hate to be a whiner about horses getting frisky over the increasing hours of higher-angle sunlight but it bugs me when they get unpredictably jumpy and put my well-being at risk. I had a lapse of good judgment for a moment and tried standing my ground against Light as she wanted to run out from beneath the overhang because Mix was flexing her dominance. Thankfully, Light paused just long enough for me to come to my senses and get out of her way to let her pass.
I think I startled her by staying put and leaning into her chest. She stopped for a surprised second, allowing me to realize the mistake I was making. I would have felt awful if that had enabled Mix to give Light a bite in the butt. In this case, Mix was just telegraphing her disrespect toward Light’s direction with pinned ears and a feigned step.
Another thing that bugs me is box elder bugs.
Really? That is the sign of spring that greeted me as the sun warmed the south side of the barn yesterday? No thank you.
I’m going to stay focused on the calls of the robins that have returned to the branches of our trees. They don’t bug me at all.
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March Weather
The people in the US state of Minnesota have long associated the state tournaments for high school hockey and basketball with snowstorms. The reason is simple. The tournaments happen in the month of March. Snowstorms this time of year have good potential for dumping a lot of snow at one time which makes them particularly memorable.
I’m enjoying both snow and sports. Being the only one in the house has made for guilt-free overindulgence in spectator sports on television while the snow piles up outside. I’m also feeling like a kid with a new toy now that I have a live camera view available on my phone whenever I want to see it.
We had a fresh blanket of modest depth on Friday morning.
You can see my tracks coming up from the barn after feeding horses that morning.
There was just enough sunshine to dry up the driveway after I had plowed so that just hours later it looked like it hadn’t snowed at all.
The blast of snow we were getting yesterday while I watched two championship high school hockey games made it look like I hadn’t plowed in weeks. Guess what I will be doing today. The snow was falling so fast when I went out to feed horses the last time, my tracks were filling in just moments after I made them.
Good thing I got all the hockey games out of the way yesterday. After the State Tournament games ended, I switched over to the University of Minnesota Gopher men and then the NHL Minnesota Wild games. The Wild were on the west coast so the game started late.
Boy that sheet of ice at Mariucci Arena looks huge compared to the NHL rinks with larger professional bodies filling the tv view.
Since the change to Daylight Saving Time happened last night, I didn’t stay up late enough to see the completion of either the Gophers or the Wild. It’s like changing to Eastern time zone without doing any traveling.
On a sad note, I took a break from all that hockey yesterday to watch several tributes to my favorite NFL head coach ever, Bud Grant, who passed away yesterday at the age of 95.
In the most impressionable years of my youth, Bud made a huge impact on my sense of order and propriety. He was a great leader of professional athletes and they entertained me immensely in the 1970s, despite failing to win the big prize in four Super Bowl appearances.
Rest in Peace, Harry Peter Grant Jr. (1927-2023).
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Warmed Winter
So, this is what it’s going to be like on a warmer planet then. January at latitude 44°47’04.1″N will offer periods of rain that will convert any snowpack previously existing into a slushy mash that resembles wet cement in many ways. It’s ugly, annoying, problematic, and just plain no fun to deal with.
For all the times I have grumbled about it being too cold or having too much snow fall all at once, I offer my apologies. The wet slop that has become our current reality is what I really mean to be grumbling about. I am NOT looking forward to the possibility of 5-8″ of heavy, wet snow falling on top of the existing mess tonight and tomorrow, which is what the current National Weather Service “weather watch” alert is threatening.
In protest of the lousy “winter” conditions outside yesterday, I decided to spend the afternoon indoors on a frivolous pursuit that celebrates the freedom of retirement by binging a docu-series in the middle of a weekday afternoon.
Cyndie and I finally started watching “Welcome to Wrexham” and have quickly learned more about the country of Wales than I’ve ever known before. Despite this show being a confusing echo to the fictional series, “Ted Lasso,” which we enjoy so much, we are finding it fascinating in a different way because it is a real story.
There are many fans represented thus far in the series who describe how much the football club means to them and to the surrounding community as a whole. Descriptions of being born into a world immersed in the Wrexham football club trigger my memories of the influence on my early life of my parent’s passion for the NFL Minnesota Vikings football team.
The Vikings just lost a game that knocked them out of this season’s playoffs (like so many times before) and local media is already going on about what needs to happen over the off-season to bring success next year. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I, as a fan, had to face the stress of possible relegation out of the NFL if the team finished at the bottom of the standings.
Watching the quality of the documentary “Welcome to Wrexham” has me feeling swiftly connected to the fans, players, and club staff presented on screen. I feel invested in their concerns, making it hard to interrupt the binge-watching for our own lives.
One reason that is quite all right with me is: It had me forgetting about the rotten weather outside for a few hours in the afternoon.
I hope the warming planet is providing Wrexham with pleasant weather for watching football matches at the world’s oldest international football stadium, The Racecourse Ground.
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Improbable Happens
On the morning of the title game of the 2022 FIFA World Cup between France and Argentina, my mind is clouded by the unlikely outcome of yesterday’s NFL game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Indianapolis Colts. You’d think I’d be used to it from this year’s Vikings team, having squeaked out so many other wins by one score in the final moments, but this one was a record-breaking epic.
I had given up hope for the Minnesota team early in the first half of the game, not just because of the lopsided score but because of the humiliating way it was playing out. An NFL record-breaking come-from-behind victory seemed more than improbable.
Final score: 39-36 OT, Vikings win.
It was a game that had recently been moved up to Saturday from the typical NFL Sunday fare in what is basically a marketing move. Unfortunately, not everyone tracks each decision sports leagues make. Imagine you are a music student showing up at your downtown Minneapolis music school for your usual Saturday lesson and discovering the cost of all the reasonable parking options has mushroomed to a $30 event fee.
I bet that felt improbable.
This morning, I really didn’t want to climb out of my warm bed to go out in the single-digit cold air to feed and clean up after the horses. Maybe it wasn’t all that improbable, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to be rewarded with some cherishing views of nature’s glory.
The gorgeous sunshine was made possible by a cloudless sky that allows the temperature to drop to bitterly cold levels, but the sunlight still makes it seem warmer, even if it’s not.
Improbable?
It happens.
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Sports Watching
Somehow, while I wasn’t paying attention, it has become December the sixth. I blame the World Cup. It feels weird to be watching it in the winter. No matter what else I should be doing each day, chunks of the morning and afternoon have been consumed with hours of sports spectating.
On Sunday, I made accommodations for viewing a little simultaneous NFL Minnesota Vikings during the England v Senegal match.
Yesterday, the laundry was folded while Japan and Croatia were on the telly.
Beyond the Cup viewing, I wake up and head to the barn to serve breakfast for the horses. I need to go back at noon because two of our horses need an extra serving of feed. Then I return at 4:00 p.m. to serve their dinner. With Cyndie now spending a bit of time in the kitchen, I get sent downstairs to fetch needed supplies and then wash dishes when she is done.
When needed, I hop outside to clear snow off the front steps and walkway. Cyndie has done a lot of online shopping and we are receiving package deliveries daily. I don’t want the drivers to think we aren’t expecting anyone to show up.
The days are just disappearing in a blink. I’ve got about a month and a half of this routine left until Cyndie’s follow-up appointment with the trauma surgeon to find out if she will be cleared to put weight on her repaired ankle.
Once she’s back to walking, we can split the time spent tending to the horses and she will be able to drive herself to appointments. I’ll have more time for watching sports just when the NFL conference playoffs will be happening.
I’m not doing that well with living in the moment since I’ve got my sights set on weeks from now when she regains the ability to walk. I guess I’d rather not think about the current situation. It’s a bit depressing. Not thinking about the here and now is how days appear to fly past quickly.
Works for me, except it has squashed my holiday spirit down to almost nothing. We’ll be getting ready for Valentine’s Day by the time things return to the usual routine around here. That is, assuming returning to usual is a given. None of us knows what future events might occur that could permanently change what is considered normal.
Makes me think of life for the people of Ukraine right now. Caring for a spouse who broke her ankle doesn’t seem like such an onerous task compared to being bombed by a foreign country day in and day out.
Given that, my routine isn’t nearly as bad as I tend to make it out to be. I mean, heck, I’m still able to make time to watch the World Cup.
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Friendly Spectating
Of all the spectator sports I follow, the FIFA World Cup is very near the top. The only disadvantage keeping it from number one is that it only happens every four years. At the same time, that long wait between events helps to amp up the interest when the year of a Cup finally arrives.
Living as far from our friends in the Twin Cities as we do, I usually find myself sitting alone in front of our television taking in the grand spectacle of the games. Yesterday, we didn’t let that distance stop us from accepting an invitation from our friend, John Bramble, even though his team, England, was the opponent of the U.S. in this game.
We were entering the lion’s den.
It was Cyndie’s first outing on crutches where she encountered stairs. With little recent practice, she tentatively but successfully made her way inside where we found our gracious host had provided a seat reserved just for her.
With tea and biscuits, we enjoyed a jovial 90-minute (plus minor stoppage time) celebration of the beautiful game. Both sides were left short of a victory since the match ended in a scoreless draw, but since England was favored, the moral victory went to the U.S.
To show his dissatisfaction with the outcome, our host dramatically removed his “England” shirt and threw it to the floor and stomped on it. John said the elaborate exhibition was actually just a rehearsal for the eventual point when England gets knocked from the tournament.
I can relate to that thought process. I’m not anticipating the U.S. team will exceed anyone’s expectations and the moment they fail to advance, I will be able to relax and enjoy the rest of the tournament with no strong connection to any of the possible outcomes.
Yesterday’s taste of watching a match among a group of like-minded football [soccer] fans was a refreshing reminder of how much fun it is to share the joys of watching sports with friends.
Thank you for inviting us, John Bramble, despite the team I was rooting for. Cyndie voluntarily chose to cheer for England in solidarity with our gracious host, since he was significantly outnumbered.
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Relative Something 